Sabbath is coming up. I felt compelled to browse the Mishnah today for the first time in my life. Some of the things in it are very hard to understand, such as the dowry rules for a woman who had a tree fall on her. (Mishnah Ketubot 1:3) After some thought, I think it is referring to disabled women, but then why does it discuss her right to claim virginity? Given that in the Talmud, an "overturned table" refers to anal sex, I'll have to wait for an expert to clear up the mystery of the falling trees.
The edition I've found online at the WikiSource Mishnah is extremely incomplete. Maybe the parts they've left out are embarassing. The parts they have posted are generally good, and give a picture of a society that takes the Law literally. I found this, for example:
Mishnah Avot 4:2 Ben Azzai says: Run to do an easy mitzvah, and flee from sin; since one mitzvah leads to another mitzvah, and one sin leads to another sin; since the reward for a mitzvah is another mitzvah, and the reward for one sin is another sin.
This is the exact message I've been trying to get across for the past couple years; if a commandment (mitzvah) is easy to do, why not do it? Even if you think it is outdated, outmoded, and has no application today, why not do it just because at some point God said to do it, and you want to get closer to him and to understand his mind better?
I have been telling people that when you obey the commands (mitzvahs) that you are able to, God will give you the power and knowledge to obey even more mitzvahs. I have found this to be true; I cannot disagree with the sage Ben Azzai on this score.
But before I said it, and before Ben Azzai said it, long before the Mishnah was written down, Jesus said it:
Luke 16:10-12 He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own?
So what do we do? What will you do with this information today? We should look at the law of Moses and start doing the bits of it that we can. Every time we do something during the day, we should think "Is this for or against God's law?" That is what it means to obey the law "meditate on the law day and night, and when you rise up and when you sit down." So first, you need to read the Laws, which are mostly found in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. But the rest of the Bible is necessary to understand them correctly. Any one Law read out of context can sound quite barbarous and disgusting. It is when the parts are seen in the big picture, that they work together as a well oiled machine to produce a sweet purring sound of harmony and agreement, moving society along the path of peace and justice.
Noone can do all the law. At least, noone can start doing the whole law at once. The reason is, knowledge of God's Laws has been hidden from us, because for so many generations our nations and ancestors have rebelled against God. We have to actively seek God to find him, to find out what he wants us to do. So if we can't do part of the law, don't worry. Just do the parts that you can do, and meditate on how you can do the parts that you can't do. I myself do not fully understand the cleanliness, purity, and sacrificial laws, and am not currently obeying the sewage law. Repentance from sin is a process. If your muscles are weak, it will take time to make them strong. Just so, our conscience needs to be trained to be conscious of sin. It took me three years, starting with an extensive knowledge of the Bible, to arrive where I am. Do not fear; the hard part was being convinced that God has clearly outlined a plan for us to follow. After that it was a matter of researching, reading the research of others, to find out what it means to get an accurate knowledge of what God really wants us to do. The law itself is very simple; once the dust of centuries of false ideas is cleared away, it is very easy to teach, and easy to learn. Jesus taught his disciples for three years. That seems to be a standard period of discipleship. In the Catholic church, if you attend mass every morning for three years, you will hear the entire Bible read out loud.
Don't be depressed. God loves repentance. God is good; he does not expect the same things from a child as he does from an adult. When you are new to the Law, he will overlook your failings. A parent does not punish the baby when it stumbles while learning to walk. Neither does God look harshly on the failings of those new to the faith who are practicing and training themselves to walk in his ways. What he cares is that you keep trying, as best you can.
Two items that are relatively easy to start with are the dietary laws, and some of the cleanliness laws. I wrote about the dietary laws in my earlier article God's Food Laws in Todays World. And the cleanliness law says that after having sex, a man or woman must wash themselves and any clothes or blankets they came in contact with. (Leviticus 15:18) It doesn't matter whether a male ejaculated because of a wet dream, masturbation, or normal sex with a woman, he, and if there was a woman, she, must bathe themselves. Even after bathing, both parties are considered "unclean" for the rest of the day, until evening. For this reason, sex in the late afternoon or early evening seems to be the most convenient and easy, because it involves the least amount of time separated from the rest of society. If you have sex in the morning, it will be like a honeymoon; you will be in each others company, without anyone else, for the rest of the day.
One thing I am still researching is the full ramifications of being "unclean". It seems to involve staying away from other people, as in a quarantine. But it is a bit more flexible than our modern idea of quarantine; you aren't limited in where you can go, but just in what you can touch. If an unclean person sits in a chair, the chair must be washed and noone else can sit on that chair for the rest of the day. I may be wrong in this; again, the purity and cleanliness laws can be a bit sparse at times.
Eventually I hope to have a list of all 613 laws set up in a checklist format. Many laws do not apply directly to peoples lives, but they are still important to know, because they serve as examples that you have to think about. When you think about them, then you can understand the right way to act in situations that don't seem to be covered anywhere in the Law. As an example of this, read my earlier article on What does the Torah say about child brides?.
It is a good idea to read through the entire Bible at least once. Don't worry if you don't understand it; the important thing is to know the main names, and stories, and to have an idea of what is in it. Once you have that foundation, it will be easy to teach you the meaning, and how the pieces fit together.
If you have any Bible or Torah questions, email ted AT reactor-core DOT org.